For someone like me, in the middle of nowhere, ordering it in is the only way. Ron's Best Malt price is near the bottom as far as price, single bag, shipped purchases as far as I can tell. I found this base malt for a fraction less and I've heard it compared to Golden Promise . . .

A 55lb sack of Best Vienna Malt landed on my doorstep today. I purchased it from North Country Malt $61.57 including shipping.

Ouch...Shipping is a killer.Homebrew clubs doing group buys is definitely the way to go.Including shipping...Great Western 2-Row...$38Canada Malting Pilsner...$38Canada Malting Munich...$39Great Western Crystal 75...$421# Cascades...$6.501# Northern Brewer...$6.75

A 55lb sack of Best Vienna Malt landed on my doorstep today. I purchased it from North Country Malt $61.57 including shipping.

Ouch...Shipping is a killer.Homebrew clubs doing group buys is definitely the way to go.Including shipping...Great Western 2-Row...$38Canada Malting Pilsner...$38Canada Malting Munich...$39Great Western Crystal 75...$421# Cascades...$6.501# Northern Brewer...$6.75

Same here - we open a spreadsheet and when we hit 40 sacks (the amount that NCM will put on 1 pallet), we place the order. Shipping is usually ~$5/sack that way. It also allows us to go splits on a sack which is good, cuz it would take forever to get thru' 50# roasted barley.

The last information I saw indicated that number of acres in barley production are way down. So far that is only affecting the feed grain market. Or should I say the lack of a feed grain market is driving acres down. The malting company have contracts for all they need and those contracts are being filled for this year so prices aren't going to change much right now.

Who knows about next year or the year after. There are so many things that can ruin a crop you never know until it's in the bin what you'll actually harvest.